Trechos de Goodbye To All That (1929), de Robert Graves.
I find it most inconvenient to be born into the age of the internal-combustion engine and the electric dynamo and to have no sympathy with them: a bycicle, a Primus stove, and a army rifle mark the bounds of my mechanical capacity.
- - -
Marching on cobble roads is difficult, so when a staff-officer came by in a Rolls-Royce and cursed us for bad march-discipline, I felt like throwing something at him. Trench soldiers hate the staff and the staff know it.
- - -
The few old hands who went through the last show infect the new men with pessimism; they don't believe in the War, they don't believe in the staff. But at least they would follow their officers anywhere, because the officers happen to be a decent lot. They look forward to a battle because that gives them more chances of a cushy one in the legs or arms than trench warfare. In trench warfare the proportion of head wounds is much greater.
- - -
My remaining trench service with the Second Battalion that autumn proved uneventful; I found no excitement in patrolling, no horror in the continual experience of death.
- - -
[A peasant] gave me a vegetarian pamphlet entitled Comment Vivre Cent Ans. (We already knew of the coming Somme offensive, so this seemed a good joke.)
- - -
I used to get big bunches of Canadians to drill: four or five hundred at a time. Spokesmen stepped forward and asked what sense there was in sloping an ordering arms, and fixing and unfixing bayonets. They said they had come across to fight, and not to guard Buckingham Palace.
- - -
Patriotism, in the trenches, was too remote a sentiment, and at once rejected as fit only for civilians, or prisioners. A new arrival who talked patriotism would soon be told to cut if out.
- - -
The troops, while ready to believe in the Kaiser as a comic personal devil, knew the German soldier to be, on the whole, more devout than themselves. In the instructors' mess, we spoke freely of God and Gott as opposed tribal deities.
- - -
Jovial Father Gleeson of the Munsters, when all the officers were killed or wounded at the first battle of Ypres, had stripped off his black badges and, taking command of the survivors, held the line.
- - -
Our great trial was the German canister. A two-gallon drum with a cylinder inside containing about two pounds of an explosive called ammonal that looked like salmon paste, smelled like marzipan and, when it went off, sounded like the Day of Judgement.
- - -
Not wanting to face a religious argument, I decided to humour my parents; if they believed that God stood squarely behind the British Expeditionary Force, it would be unkind to dissent.
I smelt no rat, beyond a slight suspicion that they were anxious to show me off in church wearing my battle-stained officer's uniform.
- - -
Lloyd George was up in the air on one of his "glory of the Welsh hills" speeches. The power of his rhetoric amazed me. The substance of the speech might be commonplace, iddle and false, but I had to fight hard against abandoning myself with the rest of his audience.
- - -
The militia majors, for the most part country gentlemen with estates in Wales and no thoughts in peacetime beyond hunting, shooting, fishing, and the control of their tenantry.
- - -
The number of dead horses and mules shocked me; human corpses were all very well, but it seemed wrong for animals to be dragged into the war like this.
- - -
I was still superstitious about looting or collecting souvernirs. "These greatcoats are only a loan," I told myself.
- - -
Being now off duty, I fell asleep in the trench without waiting for the bombardment to stop. It would be no worse getting killed asleep than awake.
- - -
Divisions could be always be trusted to sending a warning about verdigris or vermorel-sprayers, or the keeping of pets in trenches, or being polite to our allies, or some other triviality, exactly when an attack was in progress.
- - -
My copy of Nietzsche's poems, by the way, had contributed to the suspicions of my spying activities. Nietzsche, execrated in the newspapers as the philosopher of German militarism, was more properly interpreted as a William le Queux mistery-man - the sinister figure behind the Kaiser.
- - -
The Drapeau Blanc [a brothel] saved the life of scores by incapaciting them for future trench service. Base venereal hospitals were always crowded.
- - -
The drafts were now, for the most part, either forcibly enlisted men or wounded men returning; and at this dead season of the year could hardly be expected to feel enthusiastic on their arrival in France.
- - -
We used to boast that our transport animals were the best in France, and our transport men the best horse-thieves.
- - -
We could no longer see the War as one between trade-rivals: its continuance seemed merely a sacrifice of the idealistic young generation to the stupidy and self-protective alarm of the elder.
- - -
Though the quality of the officers had deteriorated from the regimental point of view, their greater efficiency in action amply compensated for their deficiency in manners.
- - -
Our final selection was made by watching the candidates play games, principally rugger and soccer. Those who played rough but not dirty, and had quick reactions, were the sort needed.
- - -
They saw the War as a dispensation of God for restoring France to Catholicism, and told me that the Freemason element in the French Army, represented by General "Papa" Joffre, had now been discredited, and that the present Supreme Command, Foch's, was predominantly Catholic, - an augury, they claimed, of Allied victory.
- - -
Yet in the very next sentence he [Siegfried Sassoon] wrote how mad it made him to think of the countless good men being slaughtered that summer, and all for nothing. The bloody politicians and ditto generals with their cursed incompetent blundering and callous ideas would go on until they tired of it or had got as much kudos as they wanted.
- - -
"... going cheerfully like British soldiers to fight the common foe... some of you perhaps may fall... upholding the magnificent traditions of the Royal Welch Fusiliers..." The draft cheered vigorously; rather too vigorously, I felt - perhaps even ironicaly?
- - -
The embarassments of our wedding-night (Nancy and I being both virgins) were somewhat eased by an air-raid: Zeppelin bombs dropping not far off set the hotel in an uproar.
- - -
The first Spanish influenza epidemic began, and Nancy's mother caught it, but did not want to miss Tony's leave and going to the London theatres with him. So when the doctor came, she took quantities of aspirin, reduced her temperature, and pretended to be all right. But she knew that the ghosts in the mirrors knew the truth. She died in London on July 13th, a few days later.
- - -
The situation must have seemed very strange to the three line-battalion second-lieutenants captured at Mons in 1914, now promoted captains by the death of most of their contemporaries and set free by the terms of the Armistice.
- - -
Whatever hopes we had nursed of an anti-Governamental rising by ex-service men soon faded. Once back in England, they were content with a roof over their heads, civilian food, beer that was at least better than French beer, and enough blankets at night.
- - -
The Treaty of Versailles shocked me; it seemed destined to cause another war some day, yet nobody cared.
- - -
We found the University remarkably quiet. The returned soldiers did not feel tempted to rag about, break windows, get drunk, or have tussles with the police and races with the Proctors' "bulldogs", as in the old days.
- - -
Edmund Blunden, who also had leave to live on Boar's Hill because of gassed lungs, was taking the same course. The War still continued for both of us and we translated everything into trench-warfare terms.
- - -
Pro-German feelings had been increasing. With the War over and the German armies beaten, we could give the German soldier credit for being the most efficient fighting-man in Europe.
- - -
Some undergratuates even insisted tha we had been fighting on the wrong side: our natural enemies were the French.
- - -
My own compulsion-neuroses make it easy for me to notice them in others.
- - -
I also suggested that the men who had died, destroyed as it were by the fall of the Tower of Siloam, were not particularly virtous or particularly wicked, but just average soldiers, and that the survivors should thank God they were alive, and do their best to avoid wars in the future.
Mais:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KFuIx2HN20o
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Messines_(1917)
Trechos de The Backwash Of War (1916), de Ellen N. La Motte.
When he could stand it no longer, he fired a revolver up through the roof of his mouth, but he made a mess of it. The ball tore out his left eye, and then lodged somewhere under his skull, so they bundled him into an ambulance and carried him, cursing and screaming, to the nearest field hospital. [...] He was a deserter, and discipline must be maintained. Since he had failed in the job, his life must be saved, he must be nursed back to health, until he was well enough to be stood up against a wall and shot.
- - -
During this commotion, his left eye rolled about loosely upon his cheek, and from his bleeding mouth he shot great clots of stagnant blood, caring not where they fell. One fell upon the immaculate white uniform of the Directrice, and stained her, from breast to shoes. It was disgusting.
- - -
To attempt to kill oneself, when, in these days, it was so easy to die with honour upon the battlefield, was something he [Médecin Major] could not understand.
- - -
It was difficult to get the man under the anæsthetic. Many cans of ether were used, which went to prove that the patient was a drinking man. Whether he had acquired the habit of hard drink before or since the war could not be ascertained.
- - -
Then the Médecin Major did a very skilful operation. He trephined the skull, extracted the bullet that had lodged beneath it, and bound back in place that erratic eye.
- - -
Very many yards of gauze were required, with gauze at so many francs a bolt. Very much ether, very much iodoform, very many bandages - it was an expensive business, considering.
- - -
Here lay Félix, asleep. Poor, querulous, feeble-minded Félix, with a foul fistula, which filled the whole ward with its odour. In one sleeping hand lay his little round mirror, in the other, he clutched his comb. With daylight, he would trim and comb his moustache, his poor, little drooping moustache, and twirl the ends of it.
- - -
His [Hippolyte] dirty, filthy jokes filled the ward, provoking laughter, even from dying Marius.
- - -
"Sales embusqués!" (Dirty cowards) he cried angrily. "How long is it since I have been wounded? Ten hours! For ten hours have I laid there, waiting for you! And then you come to fetch me, only when it is safe! Safe for you! Safe to risk your precious, filthy skins! Safe to come where I have stood for months! Safe to come where for ten hours I have laid, my belly opened by a German shell! Safe! Safe! How brave you are when night has fallen, when it is dark, when it is safe to come for me, ten hours late!"
- - -
An assistant, with heavy, blunt scissors, half cut, half tore the trousers from the man in agony. Clouts of black blood rolled from the wound, then a stream bright and scarlet, which was stopped by a handful of white gauze, retained by tightly wrapped bands. The surgeon raised himself from the task.
"Mon pauvre vieux," he murmured tenderly. "Once more?" and into the supine leg he shot a stream of morphia.
- - -
And all the while the wound in the abdomen gave forth a terrible stench, filling the ward, for he [Marius] had gas gangrene, the odour of which is abominable.
- - -
Marius had been taken to the Salle of the abdominal wounds, and on one side of him lay a man with a fæcal fistula, which smelled atrociously. The man with the fistula, however, had got used to himself, so he complained mightily of Marius. On the other side lay a man who had been shot through the bladder, and the smell of urine was heavy in the air round about. Yet this man had also got used to himself, and he too complained of Marius, and the awful smell of Marius. For Marius had gas gangrene, and gangrene is death, and it was the smell of death that the others complained of.
Two beds farther down, lay a boy of twenty, who had been shot through the liver. Also his hand had been amputated, and for this reason he was to receive the Croix de Guerre. He had performed no special act of bravery, but all mutilés are given the Croix de Guerre, for they will recover and go back to Paris, and in walking about the streets of Paris, with one leg gone, or an arm gone, it is good for the morale of the country that they should have a Croix de Guerre pinned on their breasts.
- - -
Opposite Marius, across the ward, lay a little joyeux. That is to say, a soldier of the Bataillon d'Afrique, which is the criminal regiment of France, in which regiment are placed those men who would otherwise serve sentences in jail. Prisoners are sent to this regiment in peace time, and in time of war, they fight in the trenches as do the others, but with small chance of being decorated. Social rehabilitation is their sole reward, as a rule.
- - -
One morning, very early, the night nurse looked out of the window and saw a little procession making its way out of the gates of the hospital enclosure, going towards the cemetery of the village beyond. First came the priest, carrying a wooden cross that the carpenter had just made. He was chanting something in a minor key, while the sentry at the gates stood at salute. The cortège passed through, numbering a dozen soldiers, four of whom carried the bier on their shoulders. The bier was covered with the glorious tricolour of France. She glanced instinctively back towards Marius. It would be just like that when he died. Then her eyes fell upon a Paris newspaper, lying on her table. There was a column headed, "Nos Héros! Morts aux Champs d'Honneur! La Patrie Reconnaissante." It would be just like that.
- - -
At the end of the summer, they changed the troops in this sector, and the young Zouaves were replaced by old men of forty and forty-five. They looked very much older than this when they were wounded and brought into the hospital, for their hair and beards were often quite white, and besides their wounds, they were often sick from exposure to the cold, winter rains of Flanders.
- - -
Rochard died to-day. He had gas gangrene. His thigh, from knee to buttock, was torn out by a piece of German shell. It was an interesting case, because the infection had developed so quickly. [...] which showed that the Germans were using very poisonous shells. At that field hospital there had been established a surgical school, to which young men, just graduated from medical schools, or old men, graduated long ago from medical schools, were sent to learn how to take care of the wounded.
- - -
The various students came forward and timidly pressed the upper part of the thigh, the remaining part, all that remained of it, with their fingers, and little crackling noises came forth, like bubbles. Also the bacteriologist from another hospital in the region happened to be present, and he made a culture of the material discharged from that wound.
- - -
They could not operate on Rochard and amputate his leg, as they wanted to do. The infection was so high, into the hip, it could not be done. Moreover, Rochard had a fractured skull as well. Another piece of shell had pierced his ear, and broken into his brain, and lodged there. [...] The Médecin Chef took a curette, a little scoop, and scooped away the dead flesh, the dead muscles, the dead nerves, the dead blood-vessels. [...] Afterwards, into the deep, yawning wound, they put many compresses of gauze, soaked in carbolic acid, which acid burned deep into the germs of the gas gangrene, and killed them, and killed much good tissue besides. Then they covered the burning, smoking gauze with absorbent cotton, then with clean, neat bandages.
- - -
And there was a full inch of German shell in Rochard's skull, in his brain somewhere, for the radiographist said so. He was a wonderful radiographist and anatomist, and he worked accurately with a beautiful, expensive machine, given him, or given the field hospital, by Madame Curie.
- - -
No one in the ward was fond of Rochard. He had been there only a few hours. He meant nothing to any one there. He was a dying man, in a field hospital, that was all.
- - -
"My husband," she explained, "has a little estaminet, just outside of Ypres. We have been very fortunate. Only yesterday, of all the long days of the war, of the many days of bombardment, did a shell fall into our kitchen, wounding our son, as you have seen. But we have other children to consider, to provide for. And my husband is making much money at present, selling drink to the English soldiers. I must return to assist him."
- - -
The foremost bearer kicks open the door with his knee, and lets in ahead of him a blast of winter rain, which sets dancing the charts and papers lying on the table, and blows out the alcohol lamp over which the syringe is boiling. Someone bangs the door shut. The unconscious form is loaded on the bed. He is heavy and the bed sags beneath his weight. The brancardiers gather up their red blankets and shuffle off again, leaving cakes of mud and streaks of muddy water on the green linoleum. Outside the guns roar and inside the baracques shake, and again and again the stretcher bearers come into the ward, carrying dying men from the high tables in the operating room.
- - -
Meningitis has set in and it won't be long now, before we'll have another empty bed. Yellow foam flows down his nose, thick yellow foam, bubbles of it, bursting, bubbling yellow foam. It humps up under his nose, up and up, in bubbles, and the bubbles burst and run in turgid streams down upon his shaggy beard. [...] he cried and sobbed all the while the General decorated him, and protested that he did not want to die.
- - -
Pathetic little photographs they were, of common, working-class women, some fat and work-worn, some thin and work-worn, some with stodgy little children grouped about them, some without, but all were practically the same. They were the wives of these men in the beds here.
- - -
There was much talk of home, and much of it was longing, and much of it was pathetic, and much of it was resigned. And always the little, ugly wives, the stupid, ordinary wives, represented home.
- - -
Women can come into the War Zone, on various pretexts, but wives cannot. Wives, it appears, are bad for the morale of the Army. They come with their troubles, to talk of how business is failing, of how things are going to the bad at home, because of the war; of how great the struggle, how bitter the trials and the poverty and hardship. They establish the connecting link between the soldier and his life at home, his life that he is compelled to resign. Letters can be censored and all disquieting, disturbing items cut out, but if a wife is permitted to come to the War Zone, to see her husband, there is no censoring the things she may tell him.
- - -
You speak of the young aviator who was decorated for destroying a Zeppelin single-handed, and in the next breath you add, and he killed himself, a few days later, by attempting to fly when he was drunk.
- - -
These were decent girls at the beginning of the war. But you know women, how they run after men, especially when the men wear uniforms, all gilt buttons and braid. It's not the men's fault that most of the women in the War Zone are ruined. Have you ever watched the village girls when a regiment comes through, or stops for a night or two, en repos, on its way to the Front? Have you seen the girls make fools of themselves over the men? Well, that's why there are so many accessible for the troops. Of course the professional prostitutes from Paris aren't admitted to the War Zone, but the Belgian girls made such fools of themselves, the others weren't needed. [...] they are all ruined and not fit for any decent man to mate with, after the war.
They are pretty dangerous, too, some of these women. They act as spies for the Germans and get a lot of information out of the men, and send it back, somehow, into the German lines.
- - -
Antoine learned that a marvellous operation had been performed upon the boy, known as plastic surgery, that is to say, the rebuilding, out of other parts of the body, of certain features of the face that are missing.
- - -
This surgical triumph was his son. Two very expensive, very good artificial legs lay on the sofa beside the boy. They were nicely jointed and had cost several hundred francs. From the same firm it would also be possible to obtain two very nice artificial arms, light, easily adjustable, well hinged. A hideous flabby heap, called a nose, fashioned by unique skill out of the flesh of his breast, replaced the little snub nose that Antoine remembered. The mouth they had done little with. All the front teeth were gone, but these could doubtless be replaced, in time, by others. Across the lad's forehead was a black silk bandage, which could be removed later, and in his pocket there was an address from which artificial eyes might be purchased. [...] Antoine looked down upon this wreck of his son that lay before him, and the wreck kept begging:
"Kill me, Papa!"
- - -
They dispensed with chloroform and gave him spinal anæsthesia, by injecting something into his spinal canal, between two of the low vertebræ. This completely relieved him of pain, but made him talkative, and when they saw he was conscious like that, it was decided to hold a sheet across the middle of him, so that he could not see what was going on, on the other side of the sheet, below his waist.
- - -
After a short while, however, his remarks grew less coherent, and he seemed to find himself back in the trenches, telephoning. He struggled hard to get the connection, in his mind, over the telephone. [...]
"All right now! It is the good God at the telephone!"
A drop of blood spotted the sheet, a sudden vivid drop which spread rapidly, coming through.
Mais:
http://www.medicalarchives.jhmi.edu/papers/lamotte.html
http://encyclopedia.1914-1918-online.net/article/medicine_and_medical_service
Carlo Salsa, Trincee: la verità oltre ogni "celebrativismo"
"Noi dobbiamo dire che cos'è la guerra, non le chitarrate romanzesche e le favole della storia: ed ecco dunque un contributo alla verità."
Trincee - Confidenze di un Fante è un libro poco conosciuto, tornato alla luce dopo essere stato censurato nel 1924, anno in cui fu per la prima volta pubblicato; la narrazione pacata, ironica e cruda della guerra del Carso - la più tragica e debilitante - non poteva convivere con i miti roboanti proposti dalla retorica fascista. Carlo Salsa, come scrive nell'Introduzione, era consapevole di come la letteratura di guerra fosse giunta ad un punto di saturazione; infinite erano le narrazioni riguardo a questo evento epocale, e l'argomento era ormai una "pratica sdrucita", stomacante, pronta a "far inorridire le belle signore golose di letteratura alla moda".
Nonostante questo, Trincee si staglia immediatamente nella memoria del lettore, consegnando senza alcun filtro l'immagine fisica e morale di quindici mesi trascorsi nel Carso, tra uomini che sembrano inquietanti spaventapasseri o statue di cera pronte a squagliarsi nel fango, giovani fanti resi invisibili da buche buie e sporche in un cimitero di morti insepolti e di sepolti vivi. Lo stile incarna quasi un paradosso: il libro è gelido nelle totalità ma espressionista ed inventivo nella scrittura; il distacco e l'impersonalità, del resto, erano forse gli unici espedienti per poter esprimere una tale galleria di orrori, che non ci risparmia nulla.
Da questa implacabile galleria è opportuno isolare almeno un quadro, ovvero quello del ritorno in Patria del protagonista durante la prima licenza. Salsa giunge a Milano con la divisa logora e un fardello pieno di stracci e si accorge di vagare per la città nello smarrimento più totale, come se vedesse le cose per la prima volta. Eppure, in patria nulla è cambiato; la gente passeggia indifferente per le vie, i teatri annunciano i loro spettacoli, i pescecani si arricchiscono con la guerra e pranzano eleganti nei locali.
Eric J. Leed, in Terra di Nessuno, parla di un fenomeno che accomunò tutti i fanti: la "sentimentalizzazione della Patria"; i soldati, avendo perso qualsiasi punto di riferimento nella realtà alienante della guerra, avevano idealizzato i luoghi e le persone del passato, immaginando il volto della Patria chino su di loro, triste di un dolore empatico. Questa ultima àncora di salvezza si frantuma al contatto con un'Italia indifferente, in cui si conducono affari come al solito e si persegue ogni piacere; gli eroi del fronte si rendono conto di essere superflui in Patria, dove la visione di quei corpi sporchi e dalle vesti lacere provoca anzi una sorta di disgusto; era meglio ammirare gli ufficiali del genio, i generali o i coraggiosi automobilisti, ben vestiti e dall'aria intrepida. I fanti sembravano deboli e malati, troppo lontani dall'idea risorgimentale di guerra combattuta al sole, nello scontro aperto e dinamico di divise lucenti. La guerra moderna, quella statica e immobile, condotta contro un nemico invisibile da soldati nascosti come topi, non poteva essere accettata.
Che cosa farsene, allora, dei Comitati di soccorso, delle Case del soldato, delle bandiere tricolori e delle Associazioni patriottiche, delle cartoline illustrate e delle crocerossine commemoranti il povero soldato che moriva valorosamente per la patria? Che cosa farsene del vittimismo e delle celebrazioni edulcorate? Gli intellettuali del tempo urlavano nascondendosi dietro la comoda facciata delle loro riviste, e non erano diversi da quelli che avevano supportato l'entrata in guerra standosene poi a casa, facendo armare gli altri. Salsa se ne va da Milano quasi sollevato e il titolo del capitolo in cui la vicenda viene raccontata, "Oasi", si mostra ora in tutta la sua amara ironia: l'oasi si rivela un luogo di disillusione piuttosto che di salvezza:
"Portai in me il peso della mia solitudine e una enorme sensazione di vuoto: mi sembrò che la mia vicenda non dovesse essere dissimile da quella di certi zingari gocciolanti di stracci, che trascinano per tutti i paesi le loro baracche sconnesse e che si avventurano per tutte le strade sulle orme di un sogno impossibile."
Carlo Salsa si presenta come un anti-eroe e non ha paura di farlo, nonostante sappia benissimo quale sia la sorte di chi provi ad affermare la verità: "disfattista!" Luigi Santucci, nella Prefazione al libro, scrive come il diario apra il discorso della demitizzazione, dell'esigenza della "verità fuori d'ogni celebrativismo", fornendoci una meditazione che, purtroppo, è più che mai attuale, in quanto la guerra non è mai anacronistica. All'interno del diario, catturando il discorso di alcuni commilitoni, Salsa scolpisce un' immagine profetica e amaramente ironica:
"Qui ci verranno dopo la guerra a fare la gita di ferragosto. E diranno: se c'ero io! Ci saranno i cartelli-rèclame e gli alberghi di lusso! Passeggiate di curiosità come ai musei di storia naturale; e raccatteranno le nostre ossa come portafortuna."
Sono passati cento anni da quando la Grande Guerra è stata combattuta e le commemorazioni per questo centenario, così come avviene durante le varie "giornate della memoria", si sprecano. Si ha la sensazione, tuttavia, che ricordare non basti; prima di celebrare bisognerebbe comprendere, avvicinarsi il più possibile alla verità, o quantomeno provarci. Oggi più che mai, mentre discorsi lacrimevoli prendono il posto di indagini approfondite e spiegazioni chiare per paura di ripercussioni politiche e diplomatiche, sembra opportuno capire che la retorica, in questi casi, non serve ed è anzi corrosiva e fastidiosa.
"D'altra parte, è utile si sappia tutti cos'è la guerra. Abbiamo visto che una guerra non si fa per ragioni idealistiche. Gli idealismi servono soprattutto a guadagnare delle alleanze o cacciare innanzi i soldati. [...] E allora, se la guerra dev'essere una partita di interesse, si sappia cos'è."
Fonte:
http://www.loppure.it/carlo-salsa-trincee-la-verita-oltre-ogni-celebrativismo
Mais:
http://www.educational.rai.it/materiali/file_moduli/50959_635543498470218727.pdf
http://docs.google.com/file/d/1YYScSQ338zCFoODp29hxfwq4al0luy4B
Trechos de Doutor Jivago (1957), de Boris Pasternak.
Há três dias fazia um tempo detestável. Esse era o segundo outono da guerra. Após o sucesso do primeiro ano, começaram os fracassos. O Oitavo Exército de Brusilov, concentrado nos Cárpatos, estava pronto para fazer a travessia e invadir a Hungria, mas em vez disso recuava, impelido pela retirada geral. As tropas libertam Galícia, ocupada desde os primeiros meses das ações militares.
- - -
Em frente ao terraço, aproximando-se da clínica, passou um vagão motorizado com dois reboques. Deles, começaram a retirar os feridos para dentro da clínica.
Nos hospitais de Moscou, superlotados, principalmente depois da Operação Lutskaia, os feridos começaram a ser colocados nas áreas próximas das escadas e nos corredores. A superlotação geral dos hospitais da cidade começou a refletir-se nas condições das maternidades.
- - -
Começaram a chegar suas cartas da frente de combate, mais animadas e menos tristes do que as que vinham quando estava na academia de Omsk. Antipov desejava se destacar para ser agraciado por algum mérito militar, ou por um ferimento leve solicitar uma licença para visitar a família. Surgiu a primeira possibilidade. Depois do recente rompimento da linha de frente, que posteriormente ficou conhecido como Brusilovski, o exército passou ao ataque. As cartas pararam de chegar. No início isso não preocupou Lara. Ela justificava o silêncio de Pacha com o desenvolvimento de ações militares e com a impossibilidade de escrever em plena marcha.
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Por todo o caminho, do lado do horizonte, à esquerda deles, ouviam-se trovoadas e estrondos. Gordon, em toda sua vida, jamais testemunhara um terremoto. Porém, definiu com precisão que as detonações sombrias, distantes e quase imperceptíveis da artilharia inimiga eram comparáveis aos abalos subterrâneos e rumores vulcânicos. Quando anoiteceu, a parte inferior do céu daquele lado explodiu num fogo crepitante e cor-de-rosa, que não se apagou até o amanhecer.
O cocheiro levava Gordon através de aldeias destruídas. Uma parte delas foi abandonada pelos moradores. Em outras, as pessoas abrigavam-se nos porões, bem fundo na terra. As aldeias em ruínas assemelhavam-se a um amontoado de lixo e cascalho que se estendia na mesma linha onde ficavam as casas anteriormente. Os povoados queimados podiam ser observados de uma ponta a outra, como descampados sem vegetação. Sobre as casas destruídas, velhas, vítimas dos incêndios, cada qual em sua própria montanha de cinzas, escavavam algo que a toda hora escondiam em algum lugar e se imaginavam protegidas de olhares alheios, como se ao redor delas estivessem ainda as antigas paredes.
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Naqueles dias, a frente ficou agitada. Ocorriam mudanças repentinas. Na direção do sul da localidade onde estava Gordon, uma de nossas unidades, com um ataque feliz de suas companhias, rompeu as posições reforçadas do inimigo. Desenvolvendo seu combate, o grupo de ataque tomava cada vez mais posições. Atrás do grupo seguiam divisões auxiliares que ampliavam a brecha. Atrasando pouco a pouco, elas ficaram para trás do grupo de vanguarda. Por isso, foram feitos prisioneiros. Nestas circunstâncias, foi preso o sargento Antipov, forçado a entregar sua companhia.
Sobre ele corriam boatos. Uns o consideravam morto, pois teria ficado encoberto pela terra, na cratera aberta por um projétil. Essa versão, transmitida por um seu conhecido, o alferes Galiullin, que pertencia ao mesmo regimento e que, diziam, viu a sua morte pelo binóculo do ponto de observação, quando Antipov partiu para o ataque com seus soldados.
Diante dos olhos de Galiullin, ocorreu o espetáculo costumeiro de uma companhia em ataque. Ela teria de atravessar, a passos rápidos, quase correndo, o campo outonal, coberto pela losna seca e crescida que balançava ao vento e pelo cardo imóvel, espinhoso e erguido para o alto, que separava os dois exércitos. Com atrevimento e bravura, os soldados de ataque deveriam atrair para a luta corpo-a-corpo, ou cobrir de granadas e aniquilar os austríacos, escondidos nas trincheiras opostas. O campo parecia infinito. A terra andava sob seus pés como um pântano movediço. No início, na frente e, depois no meio e junto com todos corria o sargento, balançando o revólver no alto da cabeça, gritando "hurra" com toda sua força e com a boca rasgada até quase as orelhas. Porém, nem ele e nem mesmo os soldados que corriam ao seu redor ouviam-no. A intervalos regulares, os que corriam se jogavam na terra, levantavam-se juntos e reanimados com os gritos corriam adiante. A cada vez, junto com eles, mas de maneira bem diferente, tombavam, como altas árvores derrubadas, soldados atingidos que não levantavam mais.
- Projéteis de longo alcance. Telefonem para a bateria - disse Galiullin ao oficial a seu lado. - Não. Eles agiram corretamente ao levar o fogo para mais distante.
Nesta hora, a tropa em ataque se aproximou do inimigo. O fogo cessou. No silêncio que se estabeleceu, o coração dos que estavam no posto de observação palpitou nítido e forte, parecia que eles estavam lá no lugar de Antipov, levando as pessoas até a trincheira austríaca para, no minuto seguinte, demonstrar as maravilhas da esperteza e valentia. Nesse instante, na frente deles explodiram, um após o outro, dois projéteis alemães de 400mm. Colunas negras de terra e fumaça cobriram o que aconteceu depois.
- Por Alá! Pronto! Acabou a festa! - murmurou Galiullin com os lábios empalidecidos, achando que o sargento e os soldados estavam mortos. O terceiro projétil caiu bem ao lado do posto de observação. Agachados ao máximo no chão, todos se apressaram em sair dali.
Galiullin dormia no mesmo abrigo que Antipov. Quando, no regimento, admitiram a ideia de que ele estava morto e não mais retornaria, confiaram a Galiullin, que conhecia bem Antipov, a guarda de todos os seus pertences para futuramente entregá-los à sua mulher, da qual havia inúmeras fotos entre os objetos pessoais de Antipov.
Voluntário e recém-promovido a sargento, o mecânico Galiullin, filho de Gimazetdin, que era o vigia do prédio de Timerzinski e que num passado não muito distante fora aprendiz de torneiro e apanhava de seu superior Khudoleev, devia sua promoção ao seu antigo carrasco.
Ao se tornar sargento, Galiullin, não se sabe como e sem desejar isso, foi parar em um lugar aconchegante e humilde, numa das guarnições da retaguarda em um lugarejo distante. Lá, ele comandava um grupo de semi-inválidos, com os quais os instrutores-veteranos, tão decrépitos quanto eles, passavam em revista as fileiras esquecidas. Além disso, Galiullin verificava se eles estavam colocando as sentinelas de maneira correta nos depósitos de logística. Era uma vida sem preocupações, nada mais se exigia dele. Foi quando, inesperadamente, com um reforço de velhos voluntários provenientes de Moscou, chegou, para ficar sob suas ordens, Pert Khudoleev, a quem conhecia tão bem.
- Ah, velhos conhecidos! - disse Galiullin, sorrindo carrancudo.
- Sim, senhor - respondeu Khudoleev, batendo continência em posição de sentido.
Mas isso não poderia terminar de maneira tão simples. Logo à primeira falha, o sargento berrou com seu subordinado e, quando lhe pareceu que o soldado não estava olhando para a frente e sim para o lado, em direção indefinida, estalou com um soco seus dentes e mandou-o para o xadrez, deixando-o a pão e água durante dois dias.
Agora, cada movimento de Galiullin tinha cheiro de vingança pelo passado. Mas acertar as contas desta maneira, em condições de subordinação ao cassetete, era um jogo sem perdedores e ignóbil. O que fazer? Ficarem os dois no mesmo local era impossível. Porém, com que argumento e para onde se poderia transferir o soldado da unidade a que fora designado, sem entregá-lo ao batalhão disciplinar? Por outro lado, que motivos poderia inventar Galiullin para solicitar a sua própria transferência? Alegando tédio e inutilidade do serviço na guarnição, Galiullin pediu permissão para ir para a frente de combate. Com isso podia mostrar suas qualidades e quando em outra ação militar demonstrou novos talentos, revelou-se um excelente oficial e em breve foi promovido de sargento a alferes.
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- Está uma tremenda confusão ao redor. Ninguém entende nada. No sul, contornamos pelo flanco ou rompemos as linhas dos alemães em vários locais e, em consequência, dizem que algumas de nossas unidades isoladas ficaram cercadas. No norte, os alemães atravessaram o rio Sventoji, que era considerado intransponível. Essa cavalaria parece um exército em número de efetivos. Eles destroem estradas de ferro e depósitos e, acho, estão armando um cerco contra nós. Veja só que quadro. E você falando de cavalos. Vamos logo, Karptchenko, sirva logo, mexa-se e vá embora. O que temos hoje? Ah, pés de vitela? Maravilha!
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Como sempre, o horizonte flamejava rosado do lado da frente de combate e quando no trovejar regular e incessante do bombardeio ouviam-se golpes mais graves, distintos, e que pareciam deslocar a terra ao longe para os lados, Jivago interrompia a conversa em respeito ao som, fazia uma pausa e dizia:
- É "Berta", o obus alemão de dezesseis polegadas. Pesa mais de sessenta pud o brinquedo. - Depois retomava a conversa, esquecendo-se do que estavam falando.
- Que cheiro é esse que tem a aldeia? - perguntava Gordon. - Percebi desde o primeiro dia. É tão adocicado e repugnante. Parece ser de ratos.
- Ah, sei de que você está falando. É o cânhamo. Tem muito por aqui. A própria planta de cânhamo exala um aroma enjoativo e insuportável de carniça. Além disso, nas regiões de ações militares, quando os mortos caem, ficam lá durante muito tempo sem ser descobertos e começam a se decompor. O cheiro cadavérico é muito comum aqui, é natural. De novo a "Berta". Está ouvindo?
Durante estes dias eles falaram sobre tudo. Gordon sabia o que seu colega pensava da guerra e do espírito da época. Iúri Andreevitch lhe contou com que dificuldade se acostumara à lógica sanguinária do aniquilamento mútuo, à aparência dos feridos, em particular com os horrores de alguns ferimentos de armas mais modernas, aos sobreviventes mutilados, transformados pela técnica atual de combate em pedaços de carne deformados.
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Em uma das macas carregavam um pobre infeliz, terrivelmente desfigurado. Um estilhaço lhe havia destroçado o rosto, transformando em um mingau sangrento sua língua e dentes, mas não o matou. Uma lasca de ferro estava alojada no maxilar, no lugar da bochecha dilacerada. Com um fio de voz nada humano o mutilado emitia gemidos curtos e entrecortados, que podiam ser entendidos como uma súplica para que o matassem e interrompessem seus sofrimentos prolongados e inconcebíveis.
Pareceu à enfermeira que os soldados levemente feridos, que caminhavam ao seu lado, impressionados com os gemidos, queriam retirar com as próprias mãos a horrível lasca de ferro enfiada na bochecha do coitado.
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Acompanhado do grão-duque, Nikolai Nikolaievitch, o czar passou em revista os granadeiros enfileirados. Com cada sílaba de sua saudação tranquila, levantavam-se explosões e ondas de "hurras" tonitruantes, que marulhavam como água agitada nos baldes.
O czar, que sorria timidamente, dava a impressão de ser mais velho e desgastado que nas notas de rublos e moedas. Seu rosto era flácido e um pouco inchado.
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Os alemães romperam a resistência nessa região. A linha de defesa deslocou-se para mais perto da aldeia e se aproximava cada vez mais. [...]
Balas cantavam e assobiavam pelas ruas. Nos cruzamentos que atravessavam as estradas até o campo, via-se como explodiam as granadas, com seus guarda-chuvas de fogo.
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"A desordem e a anarquia no exército continuam. Estão tomando medidas para elevar a disciplina e o espírito de combate entre os soldados."
- Estão ocorrendo combates nas ruas de Petersburgo. As tropas da guarnição de Petersburgo passaram para o lado dos rebeldes. É a Revolução!
Mais:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Yd2PzoF1y8
